Pope Benedict XVI: How Gays are Like the Rainforest

by Michael Jones · 2008-12-22 09:45:00 UTC
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Pope Benedict XVIWell, it's barely lunch time here on the East Coast, and already I've been labeled a "destruction of God's work."  And boy, are my arms tired!

In the (not-so) spirit of the holidays, Pope Benedict XVI gave a Christmas address to the Vatican's Central Administration (known as the Curia), where he called homosexuality unnatural and "a destruction of God's work."  My favorite line from this article is when they accuse the Pope of saying, "Saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behavior [is] just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction."  Well, that's one way to appeal to right-wing religious environmentalists, I guess.

It strikes me as a bit tasteless to use a holiday service to bash homosexuality.  But it strikes me as a bit tactless to do so after a week in which the Vatican received sustained criticism for not signing onto a UN statement calling for countries around the world to stop killing and imprisoning LGBT people.  (The U.S. didn't sign the statement, either.  But Israel just did, adding another U.S. ally to the list of endorsers.)

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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